Yeah this is the problem i dont have an installation of Linux, and its doesnt seem worth installing it just to copy the roms etc over the rom folder that GA creates. Plus ive never used Linux in my life

That's why the idea for Windows users is to install it on a pendrive so you can boot your Windows machine with it and access your roms directly without even having to type a word in a Linux console or copying files or anything.

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I just thought if i did the partition in windows, i can skip this step in your installation guide thus not wiping the whole of the USB stick. I had to do this for my test run of installing GA, where i was getting the error message, "FATAL ERROR: Bad Primary Partition 1: Partition begins after end-of-disk. Press and key to exit cfdisk". To which you suggested just creating the partition in windows and skipping the step in your guide?

No. I just suggested that because the Linux partition tool couldn't figure out your partition in order to wipe it, probably because it came preformated in an odd way. Now that you deleted the partition in Windows you can quite probably use the Linux partition tool to wipe it again without problems. But the thing is, you really need to let Groovy Arcade autopartition your pendrive, that's the only easy way to get it installed for a novice user. You can do some fancy installation but you really need some knowledge on the Linux system, for instance I can't do such things that's why I'm recommending this way.

I was under the impression that if you make 2 partitions on a storage device then its treats that device as 2 separate harddrives, so unless Linux sees this differently then surely when i run the installer and get to the partition step it will see the USB stick as 2 different drives and only wipe the partition (drive) that i tell it to the other partition (drive) will still be intact??

If this isnt so then im going to have to brush up on Linux, as thats the reason i got this 64GB USB stick so i could have everything on the USB stick

I was under the impression that if you make 2 partitions on a storage device then its treats that device as 2 separate harddrives, so unless Linux sees this differently then surely when i run the installer and get to the partition step it will see the USB stick as 2 different drives and only wipe the partition (drive) that i tell it to the other partition (drive) will still be intact??

Ok, I see your point, you're making the same assumptions that I did when I first tested this, but it doesn't work like that actually. The partition tool will "see" only one physical pendrive. Remind the installer script performs *autopartitioning*so the operation is easy enough for non-Linux users, and you don't have to learn the details. Of course you can skip the 'autopartitioning' and tell the installer to target specific partitions, so only the specified partitions will be wiped. But then you have to be ready to learn how grub works and things like that in case you run into issues (and you will). These issues are trivial for Linux users, but are much like a stone wall when you come from the Windows world.

That's why the automatic partitioning was created I believe. The problem with "automatic" features is that when you don't have them, people complain about things not being automatic enough, but when once you have them, people complain because they can't do things they way they'd like.

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If this isnt so then im going to have to brush up on Linux, as thats the reason i got this 64GB USB stick so i could have everything on the USB stick

I'm telling you it's quite possible to do that, you only need to *copy* the roms once the system is installed. Once you boot your system from the pendrive, you could transfer the roms easily from a external usb HD or something like that, by using the windows-like environment built in Groovy. I'm thinking this might be easier than figuring out custom partitioning.

That's ALT+Shift+1 for Controller Port 1 and ALT+Shift+2 for Controller Port 2. This will be handy for users who want to add Mednafen's excellent PCE, Gameboy Advance and PlayStation cores to their GroovyArcade systems.

I'm telling you it's quite possible to do that, you only need to *copy* the roms once the system is installed. Once you boot your system from the pendrive, you could transfer the roms easily from a external usb HD or something like that, by using the windows-like environment built in Groovy. I'm thinking this might be easier than figuring out custom partitioning.

can you tell me what option i need to select in grub to copy the rom folder from a USB HHD to my USB flash stick please?

Also have notice that the games are running too fast, like 250%, im guess throttling must be on, how do i disable it?

can you tell me what option i need to select in grub to copy the rom folder from a USB HHD to my USB flash stick please?

Also have notice that the games are running too fast, like 250%, im guess throttling must be on, how do i disable it?

Hi lettuce,

Are you running this on your target machine? I'm asking this because of the crazy speed. You can't expect a reliable sync from an Intel card or something like that.

To copy your roms you'll need to launch the desktop, it's named LXDE. In gasetup (not grub), go into Setup -> System setup -> Front-end / window manager, then select LXDE. Go back to the main menu and select "Start Front-End/ Window manager."

You'll see a windows-like desktop. Press Windows-E and it will launch a file explorer. Now it's a matter of copying a folder from a place to another one. Now make sure you understand this: in Linux you don't have drive letters like C:\, D:\, etc. Instead of that each drive is "mounted" as a folder in an unique tree that represents the whole system. Groovy Arcade mounts local and external drives inside a folder in the root path named "media". Inside /media you'll find your disks. Browse to the desired path to copy the files.

In order to paste them into your USB pendrive, go back to the root path, and enter /roms, then you'll see the default folders for each emulator. Notice that MAME roms folder is not /roms/mame as you would expect, but /roms/roms.

Make sure you place your MAME roms directly in /roms/roms, not in a subfolder inside /roms/roms (obvious but anyway).

Report back.

EDIT: Once you finish, logout and go back to gasetup, then you'll need to undo your previous steps and select AdvanceMenu back as your front-end, otherwise it will launch LXDE all the time.

Yeah im running on the PC that will eventually go into my cab. It has a 4000 series ATi card if i remember rightly and is using a brand new 15khz arcade monitor. The test i did with the World Rally as suggested in the setup of Groovyarcade ran at 100% fine, but not sure why all games are running way too fast now?

Also i have notice that on some games i sometime have about an inch border at the top of the screen, i have the V shift pot turned as far as it will go on the monitors control borded, is there anyway in grooyarcade to get the screen to shift up anymore?, as im unable to move it up anymore using the control board for the arcade monitor??

Yeah im running on the PC that will eventually go into my cab. It has a 4000 series ATi card if i remember rightly and is using a brand new 15khz arcade monitor. The test i did with the World Rally as suggested in the setup of Groovyarcade ran at 100% fine, but not sure why all games are running way too fast now?

If it worked before it should work now. Try pressing F10 to see if it makes any difference.

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Also i have notice that on some games i sometime have about an inch border at the top of the screen, i have the V shift pot turned as far as it will go on the monitors control borded, is there anyway in grooyarcade to get the screen to shift up anymore?, as im unable to move it up anymore using the control board for the arcade monitor??

Once you have your system up and running you may define a custom crt_range for your monitor, reducing the vertical back porch. Probaby your monitor can work with a short back porch if it's a moder one. That will shift the picture up.

If it worked before it should work now. Try pressing F10 to see if it makes any difference.

Yeah i tried that but it didnt seem to change the speed. How do i disable the throttle option, as it has to be that that enabled for some reason?

Quote from: Calamity

Once you have your system up and running you may define a custom crt_range for your monitor, reducing the vertical back porch. Probaby your monitor can work with a short back porch if it's a moder one. That will shift the picture up.

Actually -throttle must be on. Unless you've manually disabled it in mame.ini it should be on.

Are you saying that it has to be/should be enabled all the time?. As i havent altered any settings in mame.ini at all. I followed your guide, once it had all installed and the system rebooted and loaded into the FE the first game i selected i noticed it was going way too fast, upon freeing F11 i noticed it was going 250 odd %

Are you saying that it has to be/should be enabled all the time?. As i havent altered any settings in mame.ini at all. I followed your guide, once it had all installed and the system rebooted and loaded into the FE the first game i selected i noticed it was going way too fast, upon freeing F11 i noticed it was going 250 odd %

It must be on, it is on by default in mame.ini. It used to be like you say that you needed to turn it off but it's no longer like that since some versions of GroovyMAME, now it needs to be on, otherwise -syncrefresh is ignored and it would go full speed. Unfortunately it looks like sync events are not properly reported in your system and thus it goes full speed. But it's also strange that it worked first and now it doesn't. Try booting from the live-cd again to double check.

Are you saying that it has to be/should be enabled all the time?. As i havent altered any settings in mame.ini at all. I followed your guide, once it had all installed and the system rebooted and loaded into the FE the first game i selected i noticed it was going way too fast, upon freeing F11 i noticed it was going 250 odd %

It must be on, it is on by default in mame.ini. It used to be like you say that you needed to turn it off but it's no longer like that since some versions of GroovyMAME, now it needs to be on, otherwise -syncrefresh is ignored and it would go full speed. Unfortunately it looks like sync events are not properly reported in your system and thus it goes full speed. But it's also strange that it worked first and now it doesn't. Try booting from the live-cd again to double check.

Ok i will trying that, its copying over the roms to the USB stick atm and taking its sweet time

Now that ive copied the roms and snaps to the USB stick do i have to go back into the grub menu and to "Setup (video, audio, network, etc.)" menu and change the rom and snap path, as i previously set it to my USB HHD, but now ive copied all those roms and snap files to the USB stick i no longer what groovyarcade to look there???

Also i noticed in Setup -> System setup -> Front-end / window manager there is WahCade list as well, if i tell groovyarcade to load that instead of AdvmenuPlus, is that going to cause me any issues??

In the roms/snaps paths menus there are options to setup all paths to default. Use those.

Try AdvMenu first. If you prefer WahCade you have that option in gasetup, but I believe you'll need to launch LXDE and use the shortcuts on the desktop in order to complete setup (I haven't tested that).

Ok, set the roms and snaps back to default after i copied all the roms and snaps to the USB stick, but it just shows the default few roms. I then even pointed GroovyArcade to the rom folder again (home/roms/roms) and it still only showed the default games. I know the roms are in that folder cos i looked with LXDE and there all in there!!, though they are .7z zip files not rar...but that shouldnt make a difference as when they were on the USB HHD it showed all the roms fine.

Regarding the super speed im getting i booted from the CD again and loaded World Rally and the speed was fine, any ideas whats happening here?

Ive had it a few times happy with the prviosu install and its just happened the first time ive rebooted from the USB stick on this fresh install now, where its doesnt boot into Advmenu, but hangs after the splash screen with about 2 lines of text on a black screen, which says something like:

Ok, i finally managed to get the USB stick to boot into Advmenu after about 4 attempts (really not sure why it doesnt always boot??) , and select World Rally and it was still running at over 200%!!. I then disabled the splash screen as you suggested and now its is running at the correct speed!! . Any ideas whey the splash screen would cause the games to run too fast??

On to copying the roms over to the USB stick, it would appear as i downloaded the merged 0.148 rom set they are all in .7z file format and not .zip or.rar, looks like Advmenu cant display .7z roms??

Is there a program about that can rename all 148 roms from .7z to zip or rar?....as i dont really feel like going through all 4000+ roms manually

Then CTR+X to exit, and say yes to rewrite the file. Then launch AdvanceMenu to see if it recognizes the files now.

You've made me a happy man finding the issue with the badly synchronized games, I dread those problems and it's good that it's related to the splash screen as some other issues with Groovy Arcade. For some reason the splash screen seems to break the video driver in many systems, sometimes the system just hangs, but your case is more subtle. So as a rule I recommend to disable the splash screen right after installing.

Then CTR+X to exit, and say yes to rewrite the file. Then launch AdvanceMenu to see if it recognizes the files now.

Ok i have done that, and saved the file, went to the rom folder and deleted uccops.zip BUT left uccops.7z. Loaded up Advancemenu plus and it still doesnt show undercover cops in the list. I check the advmenu.rc again to make sure that the line had been added and it has....